


who we are in the dark

by alessandriana



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: F/M, Prompt: On A Mission, TommyKate Week 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-01 22:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4036951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandriana/pseuds/alessandriana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hawkeye! <i>Hawkeye!</i>" It's Tommy, and he has her arrows in his hands. His eyes are wide, white visible all around. There's one horrible split second there where she finds herself wanting to hit him anyways. She just barely manages to check her swing. It's not enough, and it really would have hit him, but he dodges the last few inches. His movements are jerky, not nearly as fast as usual, and she can see his hands on her arrows are trembling. </p><p>"Sorry," she whispers, eyes wide. Seeing him, what she'd been about to do crashes into her. She'd been about to kill that woman, <i>jesus</i>. She's never-- that isn't her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who we are in the dark

There's a pause in the fighting. Kate, ducking behind a shattered concrete wall, finds Tommy has chosen the same spot to hide and catch his breath.

"Fancy seeing you here," Kate grins, throwing herself down beside him, adrenaline thudding wildly in her chest. Her hands move automatically to the pouch at her side, pulling out a length of bow string and moving quickly through the steps to restring her bow; it had snapped in the middle of the fight, leaving a sluggishly bleeding slice across her cheek.

Tommy turns and grins back, and there's blood on his teeth and concrete dust turning his hair a darker shade of gray, but he appears unharmed otherwise. "Enjoyingtheparty,Hawkeye?" he shoots back, words spilling out just slightly too fast, as they do whenever he's keyed up. 

"Oh, totally. Did you see the shoes on that harpy in the red dress? _So_ last year." She's not entirely joking-- there really is a harpy out there, or rather a Harpy: one of three, sisters, dressed in red, blue and white. She'd taunted them about dressing up as Captain America, and barely dodged the return swipe of the one in blue. They're _fast_. 

And the one in white, under cover of the fighting, is just ducking through the doors of the Greater New York Savings and Loan. 

"Speed! Can you get us over to the bank--" Before she even manages to pronounce the question mark, Tommy has her up in his arms. Wind blows hair in her eyes, and by the time she brushes it away, they're tucked in a side room in the bank; one of the manager's offices, looks like. 

Speed blurs to the doors. "Looks like she's going for the vault," he says in a low voice. 

Kate frowns. "She's strong, but she's not strong enough to get through those vault doors herself. Is she carrying anything?" 

Tommy shakes his head. 

Kate crowds into him in the doorway, bumping her hip against his. Tommy shoots her a startled, pleased glance, which Kate ignores beyond a faint quirk of her lips. He was right; the Harpy is hovering nervously near the door to the vault, which is inset into the wall of the main lobby, but she's making no moves to actually get in. She's so focused on examining the walls _around_ the vault, in fact, that she doesn't even see Tommy and Kate where they're peering out of the doorway, not making any great attempt to be subtle. 

"Do you think the bank is their main target?" Kate murmurs into Tommy's ear. "Or is she just hiding from the battle?" A scaredy-cat supervillain; now there's a thought.

"And leave her sisters out in the cold?" Tommy shakes his head, his fine white hair brushing against her cheek. "They seemed pretty tight." 

"So then w--"

With a huge crack, the drywall around the vault breaks open as the vault _slides forward_. Kate's jaw drops, and she shares a glance with Tommy as the vault, which had to weigh at least fifty tons, moves inexorably forward, pulverizing the concrete it had been cemented into. 

The Harpy looks relieved. 

A few seconds, and the vault is completely free from the surrounding walls, sitting smack dab in the middle of the lobby. Then a woman-- a fourth Harpy, by all appearances-- slips out from space behind the vault. She is every bit as slim and tiny as the others, but there are fine lines around her eyes and mouth-- older than the others?

"Mom!" Well, that answers that question. The Harpy in white dashes forward to stand in front of her mother, literally bristling with nerves-- her feathers standing up and rattling, an unconscious tic. 

"Where are your sisters?" the woman asks. She's dressed in pink, which puts paid to Kate's cosplay theory. 

"Outside, fighting-- we've got superheroes, mom." 

She frowns. "Well, we expected that might happen. Which ones?" 

"Those Young Avenger kids." 

The mom's expression eases. "Oh. They're hardly a problem, sweetheart. Go call your sisters back; we need to get out of here before the real heroes arrive."

Tommy and Kate exchange an offended glance.

"But, mom, they're really--" 

The woman's glare shuts her right up. The Harpy in white shivers all over, feathers puffing up. But she turns. "Be right back." 

Once she's gone, the woman turns to examine the vault. Her claws extend; experimentally, she traces them across the metal face of the vault. They make a horrible screeching noise, and leave behind a thin white line, but don't seem to have any other effect. She sighs, disappointed. 

Kate turns to Tommy, eyebrows raised, attempting to indicate that they should attack now, before the other Harpies return. Tommy nods. 

Then he's gone, and the Harpy goes flying across the room just as the sonic boom hits Kate's ears. She scrambles to put an arrow to her bow, has it nocked just as the Harpy leaps back to her feet. She's shaking her head but doesn't seem as injured as Kate would have expected, being hit at twice the speed of sound. 

Kate releases the arrow; it explodes in midair and the net expands, landing neatly around the Harpy's head and arms. 

Out come the claws, and she slices right through it. "Dammit," Kate curses to herself, pulling out another arrow. Regular for now; she can't risk the explosives when she doesn't know precisely where Tommy is. 

Speak of the devil... Tommy plows into the woman from behind and this time he doesn't let go, taking her down at the knees. She falls to the floor and Kate uses the opportunity to send her next arrow flying; it sinks into the woman's shoulder, just underneath the joint. She won't be using her wings any time soon, Kate thinks triumphantly. 

The woman holds a hand up to her shoulder, rips the arrow out-- blood flies-- then throws her head back and _shrieks._

Kate claps her hand over her ears, but it's no use; the sound leaps right past her ears and goes straight for a stranglehold on her adrenals. Her heart pounds, her ears ring as her body dumps every single ounce of adrenaline it possesses into her bloodstream. The shrieking stops, but she hardly notices, trembling with the absolute _mother_ of all fight or flight reactions. 

The woman stalks forward, claws extended and it's clear from her expression, angry and triumphant, that she expects Kate to be frozen into place with terror. She doesn't even attempt to minimize any potential attacks, just moves straight across the room towards Kate. 

Thankfully, Kate's reaction to that particular dilemma has always come down on the side of _fight_. 

She brings up her bow and there are abruptly three arrows in her fingers, though she can hardly remember pulling them. They appear a second later sprouting out of both the woman's legs and her good shoulder, and the Harpy staggers back, a look of utter surprise on her face. A fourth and a fifth appear in her hip and her stomach. Kate is just pulling back on the arrow that will go into the woman's heart when her arrow abruptly vanishes. So do the ones in her quiver. She whirls on the balls of her feet, ready to utterly eviscerate this new enemy that has appeared before her.

"Hawkeye! _Hawkeye!"_ It's Tommy, and he has her arrows in his hands. His eyes are wide, white visible all around. There's one horrible split second there where she finds herself wanting to hit him anyways. She just barely manages to check her swing. It's not enough, and it really would have hit him, but he dodges the last few inches. His movements are jerky, not nearly as fast as usual, and she can see his hands on her arrows are trembling. 

"Sorry," she whispers, eyes wide. Seeing him, what she'd been about to do crashes into her. She'd been about to kill that woman, _jesus_. She's never-- that isn't her. 

He smiles, but it's a parody of his usual confident grin. "S'ok," he says. 

There's a noise at the door. Kate turns, grateful for the distraction from what she'd almost done, just as the other three Harpies come crashing through the door, drawn by their mother's screams. Quick behind them are the other Young Avengers.

The mother Harpy stands, completely ignoring the arrows still peppering her arms and legs, and starts forward. 

Quietly, Tommy holds Kate's arrows out to her. He keeps hold even when she grabs for them, though. "Still feeling homicidal?" 

"No," Kate growls, watching as Eli punches the blue Harpy in the face. "I just want to kick their asses." 

Tommy's next grin is a little more sincere. He lets go of the arrows. "Have at 'em, Hawkeye," he says, and then blurs away into the thick of the fight. 

Kate nocks an arrow and takes aim. At a leg, this time. 

***

After the battle, Kate finds Tommy in one of the bank's offices, leaning against the wall and cradling a probably broken arm, waiting for Billy to get done with making sure the Harpies can't get out of their bonds so he can come heal him. He turns his head to watch her come in, and offers a tired smile, which turns surprised when she walks right up to him and crowds into his space. 

She leans forward and presses her forehead to his, hands resting lightly on his hips. They just stand there quietly for a moment. Kate can feel his breath moving steadily in and out, fast, but that's normal for Tommy, and tickling where it causes her hair to brush against her face. She lets her heartbeat slow, the last dregs of adrenaline fading away. 

The blinds of the office are drawn, the door is half closed, and the security system went down when the Harpies first began their attack; no one can see them right now. She allows herself to lean forward and press a soft kiss to Tommy's mouth. 

He kisses back enthusiastically-- she has yet to find a time or place he's _not_ enthusiastic-- but pulls back after a moment, eyebrows raised quizzically. "Not that I'm not always up for a little clandestine make-out time, Hawkeye, but..." his glance takes in the location, their costumes, the cleanup still on-going in the other room. She's usually the one arguing they should be out there, helping. "What was that for?"

"Thank you for stopping me earlier," she says. 

He stills, breath coming out in a woosh. "I wasn't sure what you were going to do," he admits. "Your expression was... scary."

"I was pretty much about to kill her," Kate says, flatly. She can still feel the animal terror rising up inside her, erasing all rational thought, leaving behind only the recognition of danger and the sheer need to get rid of its source.

"Young Avengers don't kill," Tommy says. It's a quote, from when they first met, she remembers. She can't tell what he's thinking.

"No, we don't." She swallows against the dryness in her throat, moving backwards. "That-- that noise she made, it got to me. I just... I don't think I even realized what I was doing." What she'd been about to do. "It's not an excuse, but... that's what happened." She stops, waiting for his reaction. 

To her surprise, he doesn't seem horrified. There's an unusually serious expression on his face, one she's not used to seeing. "I froze," he admits, mouth twisting. "Flat out could not move. It was like someone reached straight into my brain and _grabbed_. If you hadn't been there, I don't think I'd've recovered in time to stop her."

Kate remembers the way the woman had advanced on her. "I think... I think that's probably what she intended. She didn't seem to expect me to be able to attack. It must be some sort of-- instinctive reaction thing. Primal fear or whatever. Makes most people freeze up."

"Makes sense." They're close enough that her hair is brushing against his arms; he twists the fingers of his good hand around a lock and tugs gently. "You're making a weird expression again."

Kate lets out a shaky sigh. "Most people's reaction is to freeze. _My_ first reaction was to try to _kill_ her," she says, trying to keep the shakiness out of her voice. "You don't think that makes me a horrible person?"

He grins humorlessly. "If you want someone to judge you for that, you're talking to the wrong person, sweetheart. Besides, whatever you may have wanted to do-- you didn't."

"Because you stopped me." 

He shrugs. "And you stopped me from killing those guards, way back when. It's what we do, right? We watch each other's backs. Even if that means we have to protect it from ourselves, sometimes."

She bites her lip and ducks her head, thinking about that. "I guess."

He tugs her hair again, harder this time. "No 'I guess' about it, Hawkeye. Remember the whole Young Avenger mind-control clause? 'We will not hold any of us personally accountable for things done under mind control'? I think this counts." They'd written it after an incident in which Teddy had gotten taken over and nearly killed Billy, before being taken down by the rest of the team. The aftermath had not been pretty.

But that doesn't apply here, not really. She shakes her head. "I wasn't mind-controlled. That was just me and the influence of a crap ton of adrenaline." 

"It was an outside influence that caused you to do something you wouldn't normally do," Tommy says. "How is that _not_ the definition of mind-control?" 

"I--" she stops. "It's not--." She doesn't know how to finish that sentence. Because the thing is, logically, she can't think of any reason he's wrong, or at least not that she can articulate. She just feels like writing it off on mind-control is wrong, somehow. That rage-- that urge to kill-- those came from her. The Harpy is just what caused them to happen.

...Which, when she thinks about it, just brings her back around to Tommy's argument. She sighs, and lets herself bend forward to rest her head under Tommy's chin, careful not to put pressure on his arm. "Alright. You win. We'll chalk it up to mind control." 

She can feel Tommy's relieved sigh. "Good. Because I'll tell you, I was not looking forward to a repeat of the Hulkling incident. He _moped."_

"For _weeks,"_ Kate agrees, letting herself laugh a little, though it hadn't been nearly so funny at the time. She bumps her head under Tommy's chin, then pulls back, bringing his head down to kiss her. "Thanks," she says, when she pulls away. 

Tommy grins. "You're welcome. Hey, you ought to know by know, I'm nearly always right when it comes to this sort of thing." 

Kate snorts. "Nearly always? Try hardly ever." She places a hand on his shoulder, ignoring his protests, and draws him away from the wall. "C'mon, let's go see what's taking Billy so long. You need to get that arm checked out." 

He sighs deeply. "Fiiiiine," he says. "You know he's going to make us help with the cleanup once it's fixed, right?" 

"Helping is good, Speed. Helping is good." 

He grumbles, and she laughs, but in the back of her head, she's still thinking about that rage, that blind urge to kill. Maybe nothing happened this time, maybe it really was kind of sort of mind control. 

Whatever else, now, she knows it's there.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for any typos; I wanted to make sure it got out before TommyKate Week was over.


End file.
